A VAST dam storing millions of litres of highly contaminated water produced by Clive Palmer's Townsville nickel refinery near the Great Barrier Reef is operating outside the regulatory "spill risk" limits due to a failure to increase its capacity.

A Department of Environment briefing note obtained by The Australian yesterday shows Mr Palmer's business has acknowledged it was required to do structural work to increase the capacity of the dam as part a program agreed with the regulator in January "to transition into compliance with the spill risk condition" by December 2.

The briefing note, prepared by senior officers of the department, shows that Mr Palmer's managers have admitted that, despite the requirement, "there is not sufficient time prior to the commencement of the 2013-14 wet season to carry out a lift to the (tailings storage facility)".

The Courier Mail is also on the big fellow's tail with this effort yesterday where rent-a-quote Senator Nick Xenophon declared "money can't buy you love but Clive Palmer proves it can buy you a seat."

Where Americans get their news. Nielsen reports today that 111 million Americans visited news websites in September 2013. That’s more than half of the Americans (54%) who were active on the Web, and each visitor to news sites spent an average of 1 hour 32 minutes on those sites during the month. Yahoo-ABC News Websites topped the list of news brands with 47 million unique U.S. visitors in September 2013. CNN’s websites followed closely with 41 million visitors, but was tops in engagement, as visitors spent 50 minutes each, on average, during the month. Websites of popular newspaper brands like NYTimes.com and WashingtonPost.com also made the list, alongside online news properties like the Huffington Post. Overall, visitors to news websites checked the news often, averaging 19 sessions on news websites and 100 page views per person.